Four Healthy Camping Drinks For Kids

It is important to remember that the habits that are handed to our kids are habits that will influence them for the rest of their lives.  Making sure they have healthy habits now is very important to make sure they keep this level of healthy habits later in life.

People often find it easier when camping to bring soda to suit their kids’ sweet tooth as well as to refresh them.  I have to recommend making your own drinks, either before you leave or while you are there, to help make sure they enjoy a sweet drink that is much healthier then soda is.  There are a lot of healthy drink recipes for kids out there!

What most kids’ drinks need that are easy to take camping with you:

• A fruit juice, or fruit juices

• Fruits, types that can be sliced thinly, like melons or oranges

• Carbonated water or  plain water

• Vitamin supplements

• Sugar, for more tart juices (lemon, raspberry)

Using these supplies, you can make an array of tasty drinks.  The carbonated water is used to create the illusion of soda that people are often looking for.  Don’t feel like it’s mandatory to use sugar either!  That is really best for the most tart of fruits and for more ad hoc creations.  Here’s a list of four delicious recipes you can make without sugar!

Melon Kiwi Thinned Drink

4 kiwifruits, sliced thin

1 cup of thinly sliced honeydew melon

1 cup of thinly sliced cantaloupe

6 cups of water

1/4 cup of ice (if present)

Combine the kiwi, honeydew, and melon slices into a pitcher with water overnight.  One of the keys to this is to make sure it stays cold for as long as possible.  Stir it vigorously after soaking.  Remove the bulk of the fruit.  It should get pretty mushy!   Add ice to help soothe the flavor, though its optional.  It’s always best cold.

Pineapple Jumbo

5 cups of pineapple juice

1/2 cup of sliced strawberries

1/4 cup blueberries

2 cups water

Here we have a very sweet drink that is very overpowering.  You may notice its components are a lot like those of a mixed drink!  Mix the ingredients together and stir vigorously for a short period.  With this drink, you will find that strawberries that are a little overripe work the best.  Filter the strawberries and blueberries out of the drink and serve!

Apple Juice Fizz

4 Cups of apple juice.  Condensed also works if watered properly.

1 Cup of grape juice.

2 Cups of carbonated water

Here we have a concoction that is just like soda but much better for you.  The grape juice is a trick to make the apple juice sweeter, but not overpower or sweeten the drink very heavily.  A lot of apple juice actually already has grape juice in it.  It’s just poorly advertised on the labels!  This drink will satisfy any sweet tooth and leave your kids thirsty for more.

Thicker Fruit Orange Juice

4 cups of orange juice

1 cup of vanilla yogurt

1 cup of chopped and then crushed oranges

Mix the chopped and crushed oranges and the vanilla yogurt together.  Mix vigorously.  Yogurt is very good at resisting flavor.  Make sure you see the color change to off white before moving to the next step.  Add the yogurt mix to the orange juice, and mix it vigorously. From this point you will notice the yogurt insisting to float at the top;  this is normal.  Mix it hard and then serve it immediately.  You will find it makes a thick fruit juice.  This drink doesn’t keep well, so storing it is not a good idea.

There are a lot of other healthy drinks. You will find that they are easy to make and just take a little extra time shopping.  Make sure your kid has something really healthy to drink.  Good habits start now!